Dr. Anthony Lombardi
Science & Tech • Fitness & Health
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Keep it simple especially when talking with patients

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
-Albert Einstein

I think it's just human nature to have to complicate things. But when you're in the clinic, that is no time to be an academic or philosopher.

I've always harped on clinical results. Working in the clinic is working in the trenches so to speak. This is where the rubber meets the road. Any flowery ideas of acupuncture or Chinese medicine, all the lovely beautiful concepts and theories, they mean nothing. Results are the only thing that matters - and the treatments behind them. While many think this disparages the "art", what it actually is, is putting the patient first. I will never apologize for putting the patient above ideology that doesn't deliver results, and only serves to comfort one's ego.

I've seen so many peeps brag about what they can do. What they know, how they can "control qi", or the degrees they have. Something is always missing in this bragging though - the patient.

Learning is fun, philosophy is extremely interesting, exploring new idea is important. But in the clinic it's all about keeping it simple.

Likewise, how are you explaining things to your patients? Are you lecturing on the differences between acupuncture and dry needling? Are you over explaining how your treatments are helping them? Have you noticed they glaze over after about 30 seconds?

It's best to keep working on your scripts and saying things very direct. Give the patients what they need - results. We excel in the clinic, delivering the tools we've learned. If we're talking, we're not working (unless you can do both at the same time).

And please, keep it simple!

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What else you may like…
Videos
Posts
Cool Feature on the Locals Phone app

Thank you to @susan_beck for showing me this
Neat little feature on the Locals Phone app.

Bookmarks Help you save post and videos that you want to go back to later.

00:00:58
February 14, 2026
Calling EXSTORE Grads

5 patients on needles as i make this video….

00:00:42
December 29, 2025
Gut inflammation related to knee OA

Give this a read after you watch the video: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7689775/

00:01:12
Post herpatic neuralgia

I have a patient with post herpatic neuralgia affecting his upper back and chest. I have been treating him 3x a week with the upper perfusion treatment, first at 2hz, then at about treatment 6 with mixed frequency from 2hz-100hz. I have treated him 8 or 9 times with no change. Should I be doing something different?

Salivary glands (xerostomia)

Hello!

I started treating a patient (male 80y, very active – former professional athlete) who had radiation therapy (2024) applied to his throat and lower face areas, following a throat cancer. The radiation therapy had a heavy impact on his salivary glands, resulting in xerostomia (dry mouth).

The principles of my treatment plan include:

1. Electroacupuncture: Stimulate the involved nerves, i.e. the parasympathetic fibers of the glossopharyngeal (parotid gland) and the facial (submandibular & sublingual glands) nerves.
2. Electroacupuncture: Increase blood flow to the salivary glands.
3. Manual acupuncture: Improve the overall body fluids metabolism (TCM approach).

As for the EA, I am applying the 2-needle technique to the following pairs:

2Hz: RN23 – SI17 (for submandibular & sublingual glands)
5Hz: SJ17 – ST7 (for parotid gland)

QUESTIONS:

1. Did anybody have a similar case? If yes, how did you treat it and with what level of success?
2. Do you think that the ...

June 30, 2026
Bilateral arm pain and neuropathy

51 year old man with bilateral hand and wrist pain, numbness, and weakness. He gets numbness and tingling in 4th and 5th fingers and pain in thumbs and thenar area. Hands feel cramped and like they need to be stretched open. Weakness and zinging pain on gripping objects and opening jars, loss of hand strength.

Onset has been recent, over a 2 month time period.

I know it’s systemic but I did EXSTORE anyway and didn’t find anything that seemed like it would contribute to this. L side supraspinatus and serratus inhibited.

I have been doing perfusion treatment around c7-T3 twice a week for 2 weeks with no effect. Any thoughts? Not sure what else to do or test.

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